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A woman paid several hundred dollars for permanent makeup that she said were uneven far from natural. Randy Mac reports for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. (Published Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015)

Sandra Ybanez's eyebrows began to thin as she got older. She opted for a local salon that offers permanent makeup, essentially "tattoos" that enhance eyebrows, eyeliner and lip liner.

"[The permanent makeup artist] penciled them in and they looked absolutely gorgeous, so I thought I was really happy," Ybanez told the NBC4 I-Team.

So she paid several hundred dollars to make the "sketch" permanent.

2015 Southern California Images in the News

But what she saw in the mirror following the procedure looked very different from what she expected: Ybanez says her eyebrows were uneven, with distinctive vertical lines that looked far from natural.

"I was horrified," said Ybanez. "I felt like I had Groucho Marx eyebrows."

The I-Team spoke with clinical medical pigmentation specialist, Ruth Swissa, who is now working to repair Ybanez's eyebrows. Removing the embedded ink, and replacing it with new ink, is an intricate, often uncomfortable process.

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As the demand for permanent make up grows, so does the business: Swissa says salons and shops offering the procedure are popping up everywhere, in some cases, employing inexperienced technicians to perform the work on a trusting clientele.

"Huge! Huge!" said Swissa. "Every shopping center or every corner they offer that."

To correct her look, Ybanez has endured six, sometimes painful, "repair" procedures to finally get the eyebrows she wanted, with each visit costing $200. She hopes her experience serves as a cautionary tale to other women.